Mousetrapper's Chess Log

For a Senior Patzer, Chess Improvement is a Life-Long Task. A Quest Beyond the Circles of De La Maza.

Friday, June 30, 2006

Checks, Captures, and Threats

Dan Heisman has given a lot of good advice, but this may be the best of all. And most important, it is simple. A useful thought process has to be simple so that it also works under stress and in time trouble. I have made various attempts with check lists earlier, but they were so complicated I never used them in a game. I hope this one will work better:

Look for targets and rank them by importance.

Rank initial candidate moves by their forcing power: checks, captures, threats, and then all other moves.

Rank final (i.e. playable) candidate moves in the order of material and positional value at quiescence.

Check time. If in time trouble or blitz play top candidate else look for a better one. Decide. Sanity check. Move. Press clock. Write own move and time. Check if all done. Relax. Switch to strategic thinking.

(Updated July 13th, adding target search on top of the list.)

BTW this method is called a heuristic, derived from Archimedes's famous exclamation «heureka!».

Thursday, June 29, 2006

The Two Musketeers

One for all, all for one. Quite useful to know that Knight and Bishop side by side are two musketeers protecting each other with the help of an additional tempo. Example: Nc3 and Bc4 in openings such as Giuoco Piano, Morra Gambit and many others. First step: Knight moves and is protected by the Bishop. Second step: Knight moves once more and protects the Bishop.

This teamwork is useful in any situation where the Knight can gain tempo. It allows to combine attack with defense. If I can send my Two Musketeers to their duty I won't have to play passive defensive moves.

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Opponent Leaves The Book

It happens all the time at our level. They play moves never mentioned in any book. Not necessarily blunders. But there is a real chance that they are. After 7. - Qc7 (see my previous post) I did not realize what really had happened. I committed a double time management blunder.

The first blunder was choosing quickly a normal candidate move played in this position. The Queen wants to go to e2 anyway. Here it protects the Bishop. All is ok. I did not play this move fast, though.

And this is my second time management blunder. I used four (!) minutes just to calculate what could happen after 8. Qe2. This is a quiet position and it is completely useless to spend four minutes just to detect minor differences in a position where Black has numerous options to continue.

A better way would have been: «Well, I can always play Qe2 a tempo. But what are the alternatives? Let's spend four minutes to have a look at them.» It's a safe bet that I would have found 8. Nb5!

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

O.k. Deep Shredder, It Is My Turn Now

You did a great job in the postmortem with your fast silicon brain. But mine is flesh and blood. That is slow and analog. So let's have a flesh and blood look at this position after 1.e4 c5 2.d4 cxd4 3.c3 dxc3 4.Nxc3 g6 5.Nf3 Bg7 6.Bc4 e6 7.O-O Qc7

(My opponent just has played Qc7)

It requires al real cascade of errors for not being able to punish this blunder of Black:

Monday, June 26, 2006

A Closer Look at the Brain

Of course it is important in chess what happens on the board. But even more important is what happens in the brain. Deep Shredder cannot tell me. I must find out myself. The move is bad. Ok. But why did I make it? A better move would have won. Why didn't I find it? I think these are the sort of questions that may help me overcome my plateau phase. I never really asked myself like this. Just said shit, a bad move, make it better next time. But when I made it in the game I was not aware doing a bad move. I thought that it was a good one. What ideas brought me to this false assumption? I think this is the lesson I can learn from my last game. MDLM called it learn to think. I must find my own way to transfer to the OTB play all the tricks I have learnt in puzzles and on CTS.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Morra Patterns and Quiescence Errors

I have to report another loss here. But I leave the battlefield with head held high. Because I did not give up after a knight loss. Fought myself back into the game and, alas, blundered it away in time trouble. Shit happens.

Two important notes here. First I missed a really basic opening pattern. Just because I have not come across it up to now. The Knight Fork of the Squares e8 and c4. The next pattern I have looked at, but not deeply enough. Quiescence Error, that is, stopping the calculation too soon, in a non-quiet position that is treated as if being quiet. I did this twice in the game. First missing a distinctive advantage. Second, after being back in the game, missing the last drawing chance in time trouble.

And now I come to the real point. I had looked at the line that would have secured an equal position. But I did not have the time to calculate it to the end. I just stopped at a point where I said to myself, sorry, boy, not sufficient. Then I switched to candidate move 2. Time was dripping away. Stress. No time now to look at candidate 2 as thoroughly as at number 1. And here comes the irrationality into play. I just hoped that number 2 must be better than 1. I was fully aware that it was not looking better at a glance. In fact, it was looking worse. All the same, I played it and, of course, lost.

I think I can learn a lot by looking at this crazy brain mechanism. It is what mankind always has done when in danger and despair. Just hope and pray that things will be ok. Stupid.

A proper way of handling the situation would have been as follows. Well, candidate 1 looks very promising. Calculate. O shit, it will not be enough. Now candidate 2. It overcomes a drawback of 1, but at what cost? O shit, not enough time to calculate. Quiet. No panic. Just have a look. Candidate 1 looks much better than 2. I have nothing to lose. Well, I play 1 and we shall see what happens now.

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Dumb Boxers Punch The Guard

So simple a conclusion can be. It hurts to admit own dumbness, but it must be done. I remember a boxer's comment about his opponent after a won match. He is strong, he is fierce, a big fighter, he said. But he is not clever. He punches the guard.

When I look at my last game, on board (not square) level, I see that just this had happened. And surely not for the first time. Now, I try to tell again the stories of my last two games, on board level.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Fooled by a Fata Morgana

Here is my most recent game. For the first time in the Evans Gambit, I threw three pawns at my opponent for a heavy attack. He took them and already I saw myself on the winning side. But somehow I attacked the wrong targets and then let myself be fooled and made a crazy move that I knew would normally lose, but in this special case ... It was not special, of course.

In conclusion: White sacrificed three pawns for an overwhelming attack. But then, instead of going for the King, he went for the Queen without being able to bother her. Black threw all forces to defend his destroyed king's wing. The abandoned queen wing with a number of weak pawns would have been an excellent target. But instead of attacking it, White continued to play on the king's side where forces were traded. But White refused to accept that his winning chances had gone. Instead, he deliberately violated a golden rule due to a fata morgana, raised by the hope that he still could win. Black, with some kind help of White, managed to punish him.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Discussing the English

I have taken the time to look back to a very interesting game I have played recently. R. has defeated me time and again with her English opening. I had tried several strategies but always came to a closed position that R. likes. But this time I had prepared a surprise for her, and really ...

In conclusion: Black missed an opportunity to attack the King in the middlegame and decided to win a pawn and realize it in the endgame, which also was o.k. But then he did not manage to activate his pieces properly aud quickly. White in turn missed to equalize. Black focused too much on one target instead of forking two of them. He missed to relieve his King from a heavy duty and gave away his pawn. But White missed to take it back. So, in the end, it was an easy win for Black.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Target Stats

In seven games, I have identified 45 significant targets. Roughly half of them are pawns and half of them are pieces. About 90 percent of the targets were not protected at all, or underprotected. About 10 percent were just exposed to an attack or in danger of being trapped.

Thus, the most likely target will be a piece or pawn not protected at all, or not sufficiently protected. No protection and insufficient protection occur in roughly equal amounts. The insufficient protection, if present, will be by another piece, and here K and Q are overrepresented because of their limited protective power. Pawns are underrepresented, because they normally do a god protecting job if they are not pinned or under attack themselves.

Of course, K and Q are targets all the time, but not always significant ones. For a target to become significant it must be vulnerable to an attack, and this attack must gain advantage. Just any unprotected pawn or any piece only protected by the Queen are no significant targets. Nor are Kings in safe castles nor Queens exposed to fruitless attacks.

A target most likely becomes significant by combination. That is, forming a geometrical pattern (fork, skewer, pin) with another target or being «guarded» by an overworked piece. If a single target becomes significant, it is most likely the King under a mating attack or a trapped piece.

In conclusion: A piece or a pawn have about equal odds to become a significant target. Any piece or pawn not protected by a pawn is a good target candidate. The higher the value of the protector, the higher the odds of becoming a significant target. Two targets on squares of same color have higher odds to become significant. If significant targets are on squares of different colors, most likely an overworked piece is involved. I have the impression that best candidates of overworked pieces are King and Queen, but my data base is too limited so far.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Bullshit or what?

Not long after my post had been online yesterday I had the impression that its sole purpose might be to mislead my opponents. But as my opponents never will read my blog, this post is likely to be mere bullshit. Why should Caissa be so kind to let things happen on just some squares I had scratched together by some theory that is very doubtful to make sense? It was necessary to find out. So, today, I made some preliminary stats. I spotted 27 relevant targets in 4 past games of mine, and 7 of them were on the so called basic key squares. Hahaha. One fourth, same as the fraction of basics compared to all 64 squares. In other words: Correlation = zero. In other words: Bullshit.

Well, the stats revealed things that are really interesting. More about this later, because my wife is waiting for a nice evening together. See you later, boys!

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Basic Key Squares

Definition: A basic key square is a square on the board where targets or important actions regularly show up. These are, in the early opening, a/h 1/8 (4 squares) with unprotected rooks, f 2/7 (2 squares) with pawns protected only by the kings, and c/f 3/6 (4 squares) where knights can be pinned by bishops. After castling kingside: f-g-h 1-2/7-8 (12 squares). Without castling in the later opening: d-e-f 1-2/7-8 (12 squares). After castling queenside: a-b-c-d 1-2/7-8 (16 squares). At any phase of the game: the center d-e 4-5 (4 squares).

A typical basic key square count may be 14/64 at first move, and, after typical castlings kingside, development of rooks and depinning of knights, may come to 16/64. Thus, at any phase of the game, roughly a fourth of the squares are basic key squares. It is worthwile to keep a good eye on them any time. I guess that at least half of my tactic blunders and misses happen on basic key squares. It may be interesting to do some stats about this.

(Of course there are a lot more key squares, depending on special tactics that show up.)

... all of a sudden, the idea of looking up Dan Heisman's column Novice Nook on chesscafe.com dropped into my mind. Had not looked at it for a while and thought, hey, would be nice to see if he has to tell me something new. And what I read there really electrified me!

Because it gave me an answer to an old, unsolved question of mine: How come that I lose won games such as the one above? Hard to believe, but there is a simple answer. If you want to lose a won game, just violate the Principle of Symmetry!

It says that if you have an advantage it is best to keep all other things equal rather than trying to get more advantage and in turn concede counter-advantages to your opponent. So simple. But I have been violating this principle time and again. In the above game I had two very similar pawn decisions to take on the same two files, and twice I chose the wrong one.

Of course, I had missed Re1 earlier several times. Another bad habit: If I see a good blitz move in a slow game, I take time to look for a worse alternative and then take it. My main goal seems to be to surprise my opponent with unusual moves.

But now let's talk Symmetry Principle! The first occasion came on 14th move. Black just had dropped a pawn and I had to decide which one to take. The Symmetry Principle says that I have material plus and active play, while my opponent has nothing. Taking on b6 would leave my advantages and keep the rest in balance, because the activation of the black Ra8 is compensated by a scattering of black pawn structure. Taking on d6 would add a new white advantage, a passed pawn on d6, but also allow black counterplay and bring the bad bishop f8 to life. Hence cxb keeps symmetry and cxd increases asymmetry. I took on d6.

On 26th move I had to decide how to take back? The Symmetry Principle says that I have a passed pawn and my opponent has none. Taking dxc6 would leave this balance unchanged, promote my passer to 6th rank and open a rook file. Taking bxc6 would add more advantage of white (2 passers), but also of black (1 passer). Hence dxc keeps symmetry and bxc adds asymmetry. I took bxc6 and lost the game in a pawn race. That is, I wasted time with my King and dropped my last counter chance of getting my own queen.

P.S. Dan H just contacted me (he has no blogger account) and suggested me reading an earlier arcicle on this subject: When you are winning ...

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Overworked and Superhero pieces

I need sort of scientific framework in order to understand the complicated world of chess. So I developed a classification of overworked pieces. A piece can do five different jobs: A) cover (protect) another piece, B) cover an important square, C) capture a piece, D) access an important square, E) disrupt a line or diagonal. Point E shows that a pin is just a special case of an overworked piece. With full combinations, there are no less than 15 different types of overworked pieces.

When I first tested this new framework using a game that I had lost some time ago, I made a startling discovery. The poor, helpless overworked pieces have their mighty counterparts. I call them superhero pieces. They successfully do two jobs at the same time. My superhero in that game was my queen. She had been so powerful as to protect a bishop of mine and a hanging pawn at the same time. Because from the square of my bishop, after recapture, the queen covers the pawn. Of course the bishop must gain a tempo going to that square in order to prevent my pawn being captured. All this had been on the board, but I missed it. Made a passive queen move to protect the pawn. One of the many reasons I lost that game. By the way, my queen had been a superhero of the AA type.

Update: BTW the 15 (theoretical) types are: AA, AB, AC, AD, AE, BB ... EE. Some of them, such as EE, may never occur in a game. See the Superhero Queen in the game of my next post: 16. Bg4 Bxg4 17. Qxg4 and protects the pawn c4!